My personal learning networks keep changing depending on where I work, what I am doing and really how much time I have to juggle my life. A lot of networking happens for me as face to face talk and sharing. I find this invaluable because I like interaction. I was part of linkedin at one stage, blogs during my courses and a forum at the university where I last taught. Of course tapping into a wider international network has to have benefits but as I said I like to spend my time on a variety of things. I guess I've been 'immersed' in the world of teaching for a long time and sometimes want a break without consulting all the time! But that doesn't mean I don't look for opportunities to further my practice and understanding. Networks are essential for teachers but they can be accessed in many ways,all with terrific benefits.
Hi Julie,
ReplyDeleteI found your post interesting. One thing about what you said is the amount of networking that you do in face-to-face discussion. To me this is the most natural way to 'network'. It takes time, but it doesn't feel as artificial as other ways to network. The maintenance costs of any network are high, but face-to-face seems less painful to me.
Dean
Hi Julie! Hope it's ok for me to post also her in your blog. I've been reading some of them and finding a lot of new perspectives I can learn from.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post. Once again: one doesn't actually have to write too many sentences to capture a meaningful thought (my problem is long posts ;))
Your post got me thinking: What actually are the different benefits of the f2f "community of practice" in the environment where you are located and the wider international network - i.e. people through the Web?
If learning is considered to be situated, at least in some level, I guess f2f sharing helps [teaches] us coping in our current environment and context, as our community is there and knows the context. Of course it may provide many other things too.
But if you consider what e.g. Wenger suggests about communities of practice is, that sometimes communities need new ideas and knowledge from outside of its own familiar zone to stay fruitful. So maybe this is where the web, and actually [hopefully] this program too, could assist.
Just thinking. :) It is a fact that we all learn something all the time, it is about "what" and "for what" this learning happens. Some similar kind of interesting ideas were emerging in Bara'a's post if you are interested and have time to check it out: http://baraayousuf.blogspot.com/2012/03/pln-network-that-works-for-you.html